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for (var i=0; i ADVERTISEMENT Published: May 1, 2009 Updated: 05/01/2009 01:25 pm The N.C. Medical Board can't discipline doctors who participate in executions, the N.C. Supreme Court said today in a 4-3 ruling. Journal reporter Paul Garber contributed to this report.N.C. Supreme Court: Punishment for doctors at executions not OK
The court upheld a lower-court's ruling that found the N.C. Medical Board overstepped its authority when it issued a position statement saying it could punish doctors for participating in an execution.
The ruling clears away one obstacle to the resumption of executions, but others remain, including a lawsuit challenging how the N.C. Council of State changed execution procedures in 2007 to require someone with medical training to play a part in the execution.
"This is not a decision that starts the execution machinery again immediately," said Mark Kleinschmidt, the executive director of the Fair Trial Initiative in Durham.
There hasn't been an execution in the state since Samuel Flippen of Forsyth County died by lethal injection in August 2006 for killing his 2-year-old stepdaughter. There are 163 people on North Carolina's death row.
The justices were deciding an appeal by the medical board from an October 2007 decision in Wake Superior Court.
Writing for the majority, Justice Edward Thomas Brady wrote that allowing the board to discipline its doctors for participating in executions would elevate the board over the General Assembly.
Among the issues in the case, N.C. Department of Correction v. N.C. Medical Board, is what a state law means when it requires a doctor to be "present" at the execution.
Simply being there does not violate medical ethics, according to the medical board, which said in January 2007 that monitoring the inmate's pain or giving directions about how to carry out the execution would be ethical violations.
Brady wrote that "common sense" says that legislators intended doctors to do more than just be present at an execution.
A clergy member, an attorney and the warden are all at an execution in professional roles, so it's illogical to say a doctor was not intended to have a duty there as well, Brady said.
Justice Robin E. Hudson dissented, joined by Chief Justice Sarah Parker and Justice Patricia Timmons-Goodson.
The legislature created the medical board, gave it broad power to discipline doctors, and can modify the medical board's powers to exclude executions, Hudson wrote.
"It is not for this Court to do so," she wrote.
A spokesman for the N.C. Department of Correction had no comment about the ruling this morning. Medical Board spokeswoman Jean Fisher Brinkley said board officials are still reviewing the decision.
"Clearly it's not favorable to the board," she said.
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